SORRY - NO MORE NEW MANUSCRIPTS!
Anne finally decided after her 2006 sabbatical year (during which we still produced three books) that she would "retire" in 2007 - but we nevertheless published two new books that year, too! Therefore, in 2008, she has definitely stopped editing books submitted to us by other people, though we will from time to time commission local history titles in England and France for areas with which we are personally associated. There are several in the pipeline longterm, including at least one of her own about Old Hall Farm, Fradley, Staffordshire. The research she is doing, together with the transcription and analysis of several fascinating farm wages books from 1885-1923, takes up nearly all her time. If you were thinking of sending us a manuscript please see our alternative suggestions. We will, of course, keep in print and continue to sell all the books that we have published - Jack has not stopped running this aspect of the enterprise, which occupies him for many hours a day.
Tuesday, 6th April 2010
Today Royal Mail has applied its now annual increase in postal charges so as we charge postage and package at cost our prices have had to rise to cover the increases. The Royal Mail increases range from 8.5% for letters and small packets to zero for large parcels, where there is strong competition from the carriers. Unfortunately the letters and packets we send out mainly fall into the 5% to 8.5% price increase bracket.
Also over the last months the cost of the packaging materials has jumped to the point where we will now have to charge more for them too to cover our costs.
Wednesday, 24th February 2010We were delighted to read in today's copy of the Northwich Guardian that our author Peter Buckley and his wife Freda will celebrate their golden wedding anniversary on February 28. The night they met, in 1957, they witnessed the Arend-Roland comet in the sky - which turned out to be a portent of 50 happy years of married life.
They were both 19 - Freda was a tailoress at Great Budworth and Peter was an apprentice fitter/turner at Yarwoods shipyward. He described this period of his life in "Mid-Cheshire Memories, Volume 1", which we published in March 2002.
They courted for three years, tied the knot at Great Budworth parish church, and spent a four-day honeymoon at Blackpool. A month later Peter was called up for National Service, and was posted to Singapore with the Royal Corps of Signals. He was away for 18 months, and the young couple exchanged more than 300 letters. When he came back they set up home in Verdin Street, Northwich, where they still live. They have two sons.
After a short spell with Yarwoods on his return from Singapore, Peter worked in the plastics industry until he took early retirement. His hobbies include reading, music, watercolour painting and computing.
Peter and Freda believe that the key to a happy marriage is "to work together and be tolerant of each other's faults".
We wish them a very happy day and send them our sincere congratulations.
Wednesday, 17th February, 2010
We are very sad to report the death from cancer of our author Emily White OBE, whose funeral was held today at Prestbury.
She was born in 1925, the only daughter of Manchester businessman John Stanley White. She recorded both their biographies in her book, "Father and Daughter - Two Middle-class Lives", which we published in February 2008.
Emily went up to Oxford in 1942 where she studied Philosophy, Politics and Economics and represented the university at tennis. She went into housing management in London, Manchester and Chester but needed a bigger challenge and in 1955 turned to the many-faceted voluntary social services scene in Manchester and Salford. In 1976 she was retrospectively awarded the OBE for her work with the Manchester Council for Voluntary Service; by this time she had moved to the Warrington New Town social development department.
Following her retirement in 1982 Emily continued to be involved in many projects and socially-responsible causes, such as the setting-up of Age Concern Cheshire, and became Lady Captain of Prestbury Golf Club. She had been given Life membership of the club as a 21st birthday present by her father and was one of its most long-standing members. After her mother's death she moved to a cottage in the village of Kerridge. She adored dogs and loved being a godmother.
Monday, 25th January 2010
We are sure that our readers will join us in offering our sincere condolences to our artist Patricia Kelsall on the death of her husband, Richard on January 23rd. Richard, age 71, was very well-known locally as an artist, art teacher, lecturer, theatre critic and long-time chairman of Northwich Heritage Society. He had been suffering from leukaemia.
We will always be extremely grateful to Richard and Pat who have been an invaluable help in sending out book orders for us when we are away from home. Without their generous assistance we would have been unable to continue to produce and sell our titles.
A memorial service will be held for Richard at Hartford Parish Church, on Thursday, February 4 at 3pm.
Thursday, 21st January 2010
We are sorry to pass on the news that our author, Geoff Morris, age 89, has died in an elderly people's home in Charente-Maritime, France. He wrote "Only fools drink water" and "Two birds and no stones".
Geoff was born in Crewe in 1920 and was a teacher by profession. After volunteering to serve in the Royal Tank Regiment in the Second World War, he left Great Britain with the 50th R.T.R. to join the 8th Army in North Africa. He fought as tank crew from Alamein to Tunis, through Sicily, Italy, Palestine and Greece, was wounded three times and returned to England after four and a half years of absence. Three days later, by special licence, he married Joan, the girl who had waited for him. As a result of his exposure to the sun during the North African campaigns, Geoff later suffered from skin cancer and had a number of operations over the years to remove affected areas of skin.
He taught at Derby, passing through all grades of staffing and retired in 1980 to settle in the seaside town of Charron, France. He and Joan became naturalized French citizens and because of his war record Geoff was usually invited to do the readings at the annual November 11 cenotaph ceremony. The couple were well-known residents of their community and many years ago bought their own plot in the local cemetery.
When he and Joan became too frail to manage on their own, they moved together to a local residential home, and then some years ago they went to a nursing home where more medical aid was available. Joan still lives at the home.
Geoff lived his full life strictly according to the advice he received from an eccentric uncle who had made his fortune in Venezuela: "Cram in everything you can, boy. You've not long to fit it all in. It's not what you've done you'll regret, but all the things you've not done!"
Wednesday, 23rd September 2009
In December 2008 our Head of Security Goldie suffered a "Doggie Stroke" which left him unstable and a bit confused. His condition deteriorated slowly but gradually until yesterday when the end came. He was buried next to his mother. He was a very good friend and he will be very much missed.Tuesday, 16th March 2009
Jack has been busy working on the website so that it will comply with the appropriate international standards. It's an unsung task that takes a long time to do but it will be worthwhile in the end. He was delighted to find recently that although he built the site from scratch in 1999 it works well on the new Apple iPod Touch.
He has also set up an "Other_Books" section of the website where we will publicise books by our own authors who have taken the self-publication route for new works, and where we will also provide a platform for titles by other writers whose work measures up to our standards and which we feel needs some additional help to come to the notice of the reading public.
We wish all our readers, authors and suppliers a very Happy New Year and hope it will be a Healthy, Happy and Prosperous one for you. The latter is looking a bit tricky at the moment but let us hope for the best and try to support our local businesses through the hard times.
Progress on updating the site is slow but if there are books you would like and you would prefer to pay by PayPal rather then sending a sterling cheque drawn on a UK bank we can now deal with this. Just send us an e-mail with the the list of book titles you would like and your physical address and we will e-mail you an invoice via PayPal. This can be quick and easy, we dealt with an enquiry from Finland and had the book in the post within about 3 hours. It has the added advantage that we can charge you the appropriate postage (we only charge postage at cost) rather than guess and return any significant excess.
Times are difficult for the book trade at the moment, especially for the little people, and so we have decided that we will have an area on our site where we will give a web presence to books we feel could do with a helping hand. We have done that for some time where our own authors have published work we could not deal with elsewhere, such as
Sheila Wright and Carl Leckey. In most cases we will have copies of the books available if you want to buy them together with others of our books or via PayPal otherwise you can order them directly from the authors using the information provided on the page about the book.